The usual “winners” and “losers” of the trade deadline list are out, and like the Oscar’s and Grammy’s, these awards really don’t mean anything, but they’re fun to talk about anyway.
Mostly, the pundits think the Nets hit a home run (I agree) with Deron Williams. CBS Sports dubbed them *the* winner from the Atlantic Division:
Nobody else made a bigger leap into relevancy that the Nets did, and that’s worthy of the winner title.
The Sporting News brings up the Nets fortunes versus the Knicks:
The Nets not only improved their immediate future, but they continued pushing against the Knicks’ dominance of the New York area while establishing a pretty good rivalry with their cross-river foes.
On the flip side, Yahoo’s Marc Spears thinks Deron Williams is walking away from the deadline a “loser” and he also calls out Nets minority owner Jay-Z in a line I can’t necessarily disagree with:
Once Mikhail Prokhorov bought the Nets, he thought it would be important to get Jay-Z, one of the franchise’s minority owners, more involved in the recruitment of free agents. Sources said Jay-Z even received an increase in his ownership stake.
Yet Jay-Z failed to deliver LeBron James last summer and couldn’t get Anthony to commit to a contract extension after meeting with him during All-Star weekend.
I understand that Jay-Z has every right to own a minority stake in the Nets and that bringing a team to Brooklyn must be a cool idea for him, but I hope this ‘Melo stuff is the last we’ve heard of him as some kind of salesman for this team. He may be the most overrated minority owner in sports if that’s possible.
